Subscribe to this blog in Radio:
Didn't find what you were looking for?
E-mail this blog's author, Bruce Umbaugh:  |
|
 |
Friday, January 27, 2006 |
Who's duping whom?.
Today in the Chronicle of Higher Education there's a piece on Gerald Schatten's role in the Korean stem cell mess. It's an interesting piece, written without Dr. Schatten's participation -- he's keeping quiet while the University of Pittsburgh conducts its investigation of him. (Worth noting, from the article: "Pittsburgh began investigating Mr. Schatten, at his own request, with a six-person panel that first met on December 14.")
Given Schatten's non-participation in the article, the portrait of him that emerges turns on the impressions of his friends and acquaintances, past collaborators and competitors. We can only guess at what might have been going on inside Schatten's mind at crucial points as events unfolded. But perhaps, at least for the purposes of trying to spare other scientists from the professional horrors to which Schatten now finds himself subjected, it would be useful to identify some questions Schatten ought to have asked himself. After all, if we didn't think we could learn something from experience, what the heck are we doing science for? [Adventures in Ethics and Science]
8:16:00 PM 
|
|
Katamari Damacy checks. Cory Doctorow:
A fan of the videogame Katamari Damacy had these checks made (or did he just design them?) that bear a variety of cool Katamari graphics and the legend: "HELLO I AM A CHECK PLZ CASH ME LOL/KATAMARI DO YOUR BEST" JPEG Link (Thanks, Will!)
[Boing Boing]
6:53:25 AM
|
|
Great Experiments: Top Eleven at Uncertain Principles.
Evil elves have apparently snuck into the house in the middle of the night, and stuffed my sinuses with cotton and motor oil (the dog is sitting here muttering "I told you there were evil elves out there but did you listen? 'Stop barking at nothing,' you said..." Or maybe that's the drugs.). This sort of cuts down on my ability to think Deep Thoughts and post the results here.
I can, however, carry out mechanical tasks like tallying the nominations for the Greatest Physics Experiment (to go with Clifford's Greatest Physics Paper on the theory side). The list of experiments mentioned by at least two different people in the comments comes to eleven, listed here in order of age:
- Galileo Galilei: ~1610: Discovery of the moons of Jupiter, and measurements of the acceleration of falling objects.
- Ole Roemer ~1675: Measurement of the speed of light by timing the eclipses of Io.
- Isaac Newton ~1700: Dispersion of light and measurements of circulating fluids.
- Henry Cavendish, ~1797: Measurement of the graviational constant G.
- Michael Faraday ~1831: Discovery of electromagnetic induction.
- Michelson and Morley ~1887: Disproving the existence of the luminiferous aether.
- Heinrich Hertz ~1888: Creation and detection of electromagnetic waves.
- Ernest Rutherford ~1909: Discovery of the nucleus of the atom.
- Edwin Hubble ~1929: Determination of the distance to galaxies, and measurement of the expansion of the universe.
- Rudolf Mossbauer ~1957: Discovery of the Mossbauer Effect and gamma-ray spectroscopy.
- Alain Aspect ~1981: Experimental tests of Bell's Inequality.
(Dates are pulled off Wikipedia, and hence highly approximate. In some cases, I've lumped together votes for two different experiments by the same person in order to draw up the list. Newton just barely squeaks on by this method, but he's such a prickly bastard that it wouldn't be wise to leave him off...)
It's a pretty impressive list, really, spanning four centuries and a great many important and historic experiments. The list of people left out (go look at the comments to the other thread) is just as impressive.
So, here's the plan. Over the next indeterminate period of time, I will endeavor to write up short pieces describing the various experiments and observations on the list, and where they fit in the history of modern physics. After that, if I haven't lost interest, I may put it up for another vote, which I promise will be every bit as scientific as the last one.
6:52:35 AM
|
|
Taking it personally.
Today I had my first (non-virtual) class meetings of the spring semester. There's nothing like having every available seat filled and then having folks stream in to sit on the floor to make an academic feel popular. (Of course, in the past, a significant portion of those who have gotten add-codes have then disappeared until the midterm, after which most of those disappeared for good. But right now I'm popular!)
When it came time to give "the talk" about academic integrity, I was less dispassionate than I have been in years past. It's no secret that I think plagiarism is lame. But, in the vain hope that it might make a difference -- that this might be the term with no instances of plagiarism -- I decided to lay it on the line. Here's a close approximation of what I told my classes:
[Adventures in Ethics and Science]
From later in the post (not the talk to the class):
There's a part of me that thinks that people ought to take plagiarism, fabrication, and other forms of dishonesty more personally. When a community gets to the point that dishonesty seems utterly banal -- just the cost of doing business -- you're in real trouble. (Exhibit A: American politics.)
When a researcher doctors photographs before submitting them to a journal, not only should that researcher be spanked by the journal editors, but he ought to get phone calls from colleagues expressing their hurt and disappointment that, for the sake of expedience (or whatever lame-ass justification the researcher has), he has brought dishonor to the whole community of researchers. When a scientist is caught making up data, she should not only be fired from her academic job, but should also be treated to an intervention by her collaborators and graduate school lab mates. When Hwang Woo Suk goes to the supermarket, he ought to be scolded by other scientists in the produce aisle.
Scientists should take dishonesty from other scientists personally because it shows a lack of regard for something that matters to the rest of the scientific community. And, being dishonest to other scientists means you think they're suckers. Cheaters aren't just hurting themselves; they're screwing things up for the whole community. They're making life harder for the scientists who are honest. Honest scientists are entitled to beat the metaphorical crap out of them. Because it is personal.
6:51:48 AM
|
|
What is "Design"?.
 “You know those gorgeous old brownstones in New York City? With the elaborate carvings, gargoyles, and beautiful iron fences? Well, if you dig up the old architectural plans, the architect would often just write something like "beautiful fretwork" on the drawing, and leave it up to the artisan, the old craftsman from Italy to come up with something, fully expecting that it will be beautiful.
“That's not design. That's decoration.”
Great Design: What is Design? (First draft). [Joel on Software]
6:51:39 AM
|
|
How actors remember their lines.
How do actors remember pages and pages of lines? Apparently, it's usually not through rote memorization. Cognitive psychologist Helga Noice (Elmhurst College) and her actor/director husband Tony Noice (Indiana State University) have spent twenty years studying the psychology of actors and their techniques. What they found could potentially be used by elderly individuals whose cognitive abilities are declining. The Noices report their latest results in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. From an Association for Psychological Science news release:
According to the researchers, the secret of actors' memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the script, but on those words' meaning -- the moment-to-moment motivations of the character saying them -- as well as on the physical and emotional dimensions of their performance.
To get inside the character, an actor will break a script down into a series of logically connected "beats" or intentions. Good actors don't think about their lines, but feel their character's intention in reaction to what the other actors do, causing their lines to come spontaneously and naturally. The researchers quote the great British actor Michael Caine: "You must be able to stand there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor's face."
The key, the researchers have found, is a process called active experiencing, which they say uses "all physical, mental, and emotional channels to communicate the meaning of material to another person." It is a principle that can be applied off-stage as well as on. For example, students who studied material by imagining conveying its meaning to somebody else who needed the information showed higher retention than those who tried to memorize the material by rote.
Link
[Boing Boing]
6:51:38 AM
|
|
HOWTO build sustainable wireless networks in the developing world.
A new free book delivers a complete HOWTO for assembling and maintaining wireless networks in rural towns in developing countries. "Wireless Networking in the Developing World" was co-written by some of the world's leading community wireless experts, including Rob Flickenger, who wrote O'Reilly's seminal Building Community Wireless Networks and Wireless Hacks, wire.less.dk's Tomas Krag, and numerous wireless hackers of great skill and repute. Many of the contributors have built and deployed networks in the developing world, and they have released the whole text under a very liberal Creative Commons license that encourages others to build on their work and profit from it.
 In almost every village, town, or city in the developing world, there are people who can build just about anything. With the right know-how, this can include wireless networks that connect their community to the Internet. The book addresses what Rob Flickenger, the book's editor and lead author, calls a chicken-and-egg problem: "While much information about building wireless networks can be found on-line, that presents a problem for people in areas with little or no connectivity", said Flickenger from his workshop in Seattle. The book covers topics from basic radio physics and network design to equipment and troubleshooting. It is intended to be a comprehensive resource for technologists in the developing world, providing the critical information that they need to build networks. This includes specific examples, diagrams and calculations, which are intended to help building wireless networks without requiring access to the Internet.
In the developing world, one book can often be a library, and to a techie this book may well be a bible. Access to books is difficult where there are few libraries or book stores, and there is often little money to pay for them. "Our book will be released under a Creative Commons license, so everybody can copy and distribute it free of charge. That doesn't mean it is a 'cheap' book. I think it is a great book," stated Corinna 'Elektra' Aichele, one of the books co-authors who was recently installing wireless networks in Bangladesh.
Link, Danish Mirror (Thanks, Tomas!)
[Boing Boing]
6:51:27 AM
|
|
MSFT tightens the Trusted Computing screws in Vista.
Vista, the new version of Windows, has tightened the Trusted Computing screws, putting hardware companies on notice that they will have to get their drivers approved by Microsoft before shipping them. Microsoft had previously designed Vista to simply warn users if their drivers were "unsigned" -- that is, not approved by Microsoft -- but in a new announcement, the company pledged to make it impossible to load any unapproved drivers under Vista.
This has been positioned as an anti-spyware measure, but it will also have the effect of making copy- and use-restriction systems more restrictive. You won't, for example, be able to install alternative drivers for a video-capture card that lets you ignore anti-copying watermarks in your videos, effectively taking control away from you, the owner of the computer, and indiscriminately giving it over to anyone who can insert a watermark (no-copying watermarks have already been illegally inserted into many Fox programs, resulting in their not being stored by TiVo video recorders).
Another effect of this will be to raise the cost of developing drivers, since developers will be required by Microsoft to buy a VeriSign Class 3 Commercial Software Publisher Certificate, at an unknown cost.
Still, what is this going to stop? SONY screwed up majorly, but nothing bad has really happened to them. Do you think that a $500 fee is going to deter spyware companies?
Spyware/adware authors aren't some teenagers... they're million-dollar businesses (or larger). Do you think they care if they have to get a new $500 certificate every few months? They probably spend twice as much on lunch during that time.
Do you think Verisign is going to selectively refuse to grant certificates to paying customers just because they're suspicious? They'd be sued immediately by the first rich "victim" company, and would probably settle quickly to avoid the bad press.
It's not like Verisign will magically prevent the bad guys from doing harm. Remember, this is Verisign we're talking about - not exactly a model for ethics.
Link (Thanks, Tom!)
[Boing Boing]
6:51:13 AM
|
|
Video parodies MPAA warnings at the start of DVDs.
Brenda made this short video parodying the warning messages that the MPAA inserts before DVDs. It features a series of increasingly rude and bullying messages about what you have "agreed" to by buying the DVD, starting with: WARNING: THE UNLAWFUL DUPLICATION OF THIS MOVIE CARRIES A MAXIMUM PENALTY GREATER THAN THAT OF MANY VIOLENT CRIMES. THE EXPENSE OF RETAINING LEGAL COUNSEL COMPARABLE TO OURS MAY RESULT IN THE LIQUIDATION OF YOUR PERSONAL ASSETS. PROCEEDS FROM THE SALE OF OF THIS MEDIA MAY BE USED TO ARREST YOUR CHILDREN. Whew! It gets even better from there on in, too. Link (Thanks, Brenda!)
[Boing Boing]
6:49:40 AM
|
|
This may be just what is needed.
"Yeh, what'd'ya think of 'democracy' in the Mid-East now? Hamas is in!"
Actually, this may be just what is needed. One of the biggest problems with the Middle East for decades has been how non-representative "secular" regimes abuse their own people. Whether accurate or not, the West -- Americans in particular -- are seen as party to encouraging such. (Isn't that one of things the "root cause of terrorism" crowd is always telling us?) However, no one in the P.A. can honestly say today that the Americans (and especially the Jews) rigged THIS election -- which in itself is actually progress.
Continue reading at Expat Yank
[PJM - Top Stories]
See also: How do you like your democracy now, Mr. Bush?. Hamas' stunning victory underlines the contradictions and hypocrisies in Bush's Mideast policies. [Salon]
6:49:25 AM
|
|
|
